MUSKEGON, MI – There will less sound of the cracking of pads on the high school football field this season in the Muskegon area and around the state.

That’s by design with rule changes aimed to improve player safety put into place by the Michigan High School Athletic Association.

Muskegon-area coaches have viewpoints on both sides as the changes go into effect with the start of high school football practice on Monday, Aug. 11. Major changes include an extra day of workouts before full pads can be used in preseason and one fewer practice day allowed for collision drills each week of the regular season.

Muskegon coach Shane Fairfield said the Big Reds and others around the state will have to scale back their collision days during the regular season from three to two as required by the MHSAA. The new practice policy was proposed by a football task force made up of coaches, administrators and MHSAA staff in 2012 and 2013 and approved by the MHSAA’s Representative Council in March.

Fairfield said football is a physical game and players need good coaching to be trained with the right technique to protect themselves and that time has been reduced.

“I think it will have affect across the state,” Fairfield said. “We’ve been doing it this way 15-20 years and we haven’t had a whole lot of injuries and concussions because of the way we teach the game.”

He said Muskegon, like many other schools, used to have contact drills on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesdays each week, but will have to take away Monday and practice using shield pads.

Fairfield said much of the contact going live early in the week covered short distances anyway, so full-speed collisions were limited under the old rules.

He hopes the changes don’t have a negative fallout.

“I hope this isn’t setting us up for more injuries down the road because the game is played so fast,” he said. “Our kids will adjust and it’s our job as coaches to structure practices to get the most out of our kids.”

North Muskegon coach Mike Belmonte and Montague coach Pat Collins said the changes won’t have a major impact on their programs that play in the West Michigan Conference. Many coaches have followed suit in a trend for less hitting in practice over the years.

“It’s a no-brainer. The policy they adopted is what North Muskegon has done for years,” Belmonte said. “I think it’s aimed at the bigger schools more than the smaller schools.”

Sheer numbers will force Belmonte to modify his practices.

“We only got 16 guys, so we’re going to have to be extra special careful,” he said. “We can’t afford to lose any guys.”

Collins said his program at Montague has followed the trend of less contact during practice.

“We’re not huge every-day smackers,” he said. “Ten, 15, 20 years ago, there was more of a feeling that you’ve got to hit every day. Nowadays, the model at the upper level is more about trying to be safe.”

The MHSAA modifications are meant to promote heat acclimatization and limit helmet-to-helmet contact during practices.

They include:

During the first week of practice, only helmets are allowed the first two days, only shoulder pads may be added on the third and fourth days, and full pads may not be worn until the fifth day of team practice.

Before the first regular-season game, schools may not schedule more than one “collision” practice in a day. A collision practice is defined as one in which there is live, game-speed, player-versus-player contact in pads involving any number of players.

After the first regular-season game, teams may conduct no more than two collision practice days in any week, Monday through Sunday.

No single football practice may exceed three hours, and the total practice time for days with multiple practice sessions may not exceed five hours. Neither strength/weight training activities nor video/classroom sessions are considered practice for the purposes of the three or five-hour limits.

Guidelines reducing the amount of collision practice go hand in hand with rules changes that have been made to reduce helmet-to-helmet contact in game situations.

“We think these new policies, with respect to the number of collision practices there can be before the first game, and after the first game, really are where 85 to 90 percent of our coaches already were,” said John E. “Jack” Roberts, executive director of the MHSAA. “This new policy sends a signal to that 10 to 15 percent to get on board with the rest of us to make football just as safe as it can possibly be.”

Continuing the focus on player safety, a number of rules changes were made for 2014:

Rules were added restricting targeting of opponent and illegal helmet contact with defenseless players, with both resulting in 15-yard penalties. Targeting is defined as taking aim at an opponent with the helmet, forearm, hand, fist, elbow or shoulder to initiate contact above the shoulders and with an intent beyond making a legal tackle or block, or playing the ball. A defenseless player can be considered one no longer involved in a play, a runner whose progress has been stopped, a player focused on receiving a kick or a receiver who has given up on an errant pass, or a player already on the ground.

Roughing-the-passer fouls now will result in an automatic first down in addition to the previous 15-yard penalty.

On kickoffs, the kicking team must have at least four players on either side of the kicker, and no kicking team players except for the kicker may line up more than five yards behind the free-kick line. These changes were made to improve safety by balancing the kicking formation and shortening the potential run-up by kicking team players heading down the field to tackle the ball carrier.

Mark Opfermann covers sports for MLive Muskegon Chronicle. Email him at mopferma@mlive.com and follow him on Twitter and Facebook.